We will not yield to threats
May 15th, 20150 Last weekend, family members of the man who killed his wife before committing suicide in Dearborn called the home of one of our reporters, making death threats and harassing his family. The threats were crimes in both the legal and ethical senses. Responding to words with threats is cowardly and uncivilized. We will not tolerate it. We...Nakba Day: Palestine will not be forgotten
May 15 marks the 67th anniversary of al-Nakba, the catastrophe of Palestine that still haunts the conscience of every Arab on the globe. More than 700,000 Palestinians were driven out of their homeland to make space for the creation of the state of Israel. And while Palestinians commemorate their loss that continues to grow by the day,...Birzeit wins again: Students of the West Bank unite
In November 1993, I was on a mission. At the age of 21, I wanted to change the world, starting with Birzeit University, the second-largest Palestinian university in the West Bank, situated near Ramallah, in the heart of the occupied territories. Back then I had made a name for myself with my nationalist poetry and my first poetry...We condemn terror and bigotry in Texas
Two gunmen were shot dead Sunday while trying to attack a gathering in Garland, Texas that showcased cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammad. These men did not represent the Muslim community. Muslim Americans, like all Americans, reject violence and terrorism. But there is another side to the incident. The woman behind the cartoon...
We all have a duty to combat domestic violence
May 6th, 20150 A Dearborn man murdered his wife and committed suicide on Sunday. The ordeal unfolded in front of the couple's children. According to police, the husband was "estranged", but sources who knew the victim said he was abusive during the days of their marriage. Domestic violence is wrong, inexcusable and can turn deadly. We all have a...Baltimore and the Human Right to Resistance
Anti-Black racism, always just beneath the surface of polite racial discourse in the U.S., has exploded in reaction to the resistance of Black youth to another brutal murder by the agents of this racist, settler-colonialist state. With the resistance, the focus shifted from the brutal murder of Freddie Gray and the systematic...Money and politics: We need change now
I’ve seen a lot over my decades in politics, and not much alarms me. But I have to be blunt: Money is poisoning our political system. The people who matter most to a representative democracy — the ordinary voters in whose interests elected politicians are supposed to act — feel as though they’ve become an afterthought in the...U.S. and Iran seem positioned to strike a deal
Self-serving lawmakers in Washington keep trying to make it impossible for President Obama - and his international partners - to reach a pragmatic agreement with Iran. Fortunately, the momentum for a finalized deal by the end of June looks too strong to reverse. The consequences of these negotiations are huge. Failure to bring the...ACCESS should be commended for this year’s honorees
At its annual banquet in 2014, ACCESS (The Arab Community Center for Economic & Social Services) honored former congressman and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood as its "Arab American of the Year." The Arab American News, along with many others, criticized this selection. But this year the social services organization made amends...We endorse proposal 1
After years of the Legislature's incompetence and failure to fix our roads, our lawmakers passed the burden of making a major decision on taxes and infrastructure directly to the voters. Proposal 1, which will be on the ballot in a special election Tuesday, May 5, promises to secure funds to fix our roads after a hike in the sales and...
Thank you for your support
April 24th, 20150 The Arab American News' 30th anniversary dinner was not only a testament to its influence, but to the growing success of Arab Americans. About a dozen prominent mainstream journalists and elected officials took the podium to praise the newspaper and pay tribute to its quality journalism. "Looking at recent copies of the...America’s moral failure: Abandoning U.S. citizens in Yemen
A C-17 aircraft evacuating Indians stranded in Yemen.Thousands of Americans are trapped in war-torn Yemen. But the U.S. government, which is legally mandated to protect and evacuate its citizens from dangerous situations anywhere in the world, is doing nothing to help them. Instead, the Obama administration is delivering weapons to...Rosa Parks should be the face of the $20 bill
An organization committed to gender equality is demanding that President Obama put a woman on the $20 bill, which currently features Andrew Jackson. Wilma Mankiller, the first elected female chief of the Cherokee nation; civil rights leader Rosa Parks; former first lady and human rights activist Eleanor Roosevelt and African American...Saudi opposition to the Iranian nuclear deal is irrational
From the streets of Tehran to the White House, everybody was celebrating the initial nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers on April 5—except Israel, Saudi Arabia and Republicans. However, the Saudi opposition to the deal is irrational. Republicans have rejected the deal because of domestic political concerns. It is...
Yemeni Americans should manage their disagreements
April 10th, 20150 The crisis in Yemen has further divided our already divided Arab American community. The violent outcomes of the "Arab Spring", especially the Syrian war, have pitted many community members against each other and fueled the sectarian rhetoric in the Arab world as well as Arab America. And now comes the war in Yemen, which is turning......
Chelsea Manning and the call of America’s conscience
April 10th, 20150 A screenshot from the leaked video video depicting an Apache helicopter killing Iraqi civilians.April 5 marked the five year anniversary of WikiLeaks' publication of the Collateral Murder Video. the footage of a secret U.S. military video depicted an Apache helicopter killing Iraqi civilians, including two Reuters journalists. It...Into the abyss: Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen
Houthi fighters ride a patrol truck outside Sanaa Airport, March 28.Not long before the founder of Saudi Arabia, King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud, died in 1953, he is purported to have said, “the good or evil for us will come from Yemen.” With the commencement of air strikes on targets in Yemen, it is increasingly likely that the latter part...
Canceling the Arab International Festival was an admission of defeat
April 3rd, 20150 They defeated us. In 2010, bigots came to our city to flaunt their racism at the Arab International Festival and ended up taking $300,000 of our tax money after suing the city for wrongful arrest. Hateful protesters kept coming back in the following two years, which proved to be the last for the festival. The American Arab...The Arab League should cease to exist
We have lived through decades of Arab divisions and infighting. But now Arab League nations have announced forming a joint military force and increasing security coordination, mainly to bomb a fellow Arab country. We prefer division to unity about the wrong cause. The historically incompetent Arab League has become a tool for the......
Netanyahu the mythbuster: ‘Special relationship’ no more
Imagine if an American presidential candidate made a plea to his supporters on election day with the following statement: “The Republican administration is in danger. Black voters are going en masse to the polls. Liberal NGOs are bringing them on buses.” Even in a country where Chris Matthews is a media celebrity and Pamela Geller...Saudi intervention in Yemen will lead to more chaos
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar, joined by Jordan, Egypt, Morocco and Sudan, have started a military campaign against Houthi forces in Yemen. The wrath of Arab armies is manifesting itself, not against their enemies, but in an internal conflict in an Arab country. All of these countries sat idly......
Terrorism by non-Muslims goes under-reported
A man walked into the New Orleans airport on March 20, swung his machete at TSA officers and sprayed poison at them. His duffel bag contained six homemade bombs. His motives remain unknown; and to many Americans, his actions do, too, because the news media paid little attention to them.Richard White, the 63-year-old attacker, died...Ten arguments for raising minimum wage
Darlene Handy of Baltimore holds up a sign during a rally to support raising the minimum wage in Maryland.One: Seven Nobel laureates in economics endorse the higher minimum wage to $10.10 by 2016, saying it does not lead to fewer jobs. Two: Job losses from raising the minimum wage are negligible. Minimum wage has already been raised 23......